Denies Double Standard Story On Bauchi, BornoAS Imo citizens celebrate the power of their votes that gave them a new Governor-elect, the Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, has denied allegation of double standard against the commission.The commission had declared obviously inconclusive gubernatorial elections in Borno and Bauchi States last week after cancelling results of some local governments in both states.But in the case of Imo State, it ordered a supplementary election in four local government councils where elections were equally cancelled.However, in a marathon interview with senior editors of The Guardian (to be published tomorrow), Jega explained the sharp difference between the April 26 cancellations in Borno and Bauchi States and the one in Imo State where a controversial supplementary election was ordered, as the polls were then declared inconclusive.In the interview held some 24 hours before the election on Friday, the former Vice Chancellor of the Bayero University, Kano (BUK), said that the votes expected from the four local councils in Imo were significant enough to determine the winner in the governorship election that was neck-and-neck in the state.He said this was contrary to the governorship elections in Bauchi and Borno where the expected votes could not affect the outcome of the election even if all the votes in the areas cancelled were declared for the runners-up in the two northeastern states.His words: Im very glad that you asked this question (on double standard by INEC). Earlier on, I talked about ignorance and lack of understanding. The two cases are totally different.You see, the Electoral Act has a provision that states categorically that when you cancel from a particular place, whether local government area or ward or unit, what you do, whether you declare the results or not, depends on whether the cancellation will affect the entire results.So, in very tight contests, where, for example, the difference between one contestant or the other is, lets say about 10,000 votes and the areas that you have cancelled has, lets say about 15,000, it means that the difference in the areas that you have cancelled make a difference in the final elections.So, you cannot go and declare somebody even though he has 10,000 more votes than the other because if you do, the elections in those areas where there are 15,000 votes can change the equation.That is exactly the case in Imo State. But in Bauchi on the other hand, there is a difference of about 300,000 votes between the candidate that was leading and the next candidate and the area that we cancelled the results, even if you added it up and gave all of those votes to the runner-up, he would not come near the leading candidate. So, you cant declare such results inconclusive.Jega explained that the places the commission cancelled, such as Misau and Ningi, would, however, affect the State Assembly elections because that is the only way they can have people elected into the State Assembly but it cannot affect the state governorship election.According to him, the margin (of victory in the governorship election) is so wide such that if you take the entire votes in the areas cancelled and give it to the second person, he would not be able to catch up with the winner.So, the Electoral Act is very clear about these circumstances; that is why we did it.He said the provisions of the Electoral Act guided the Returning Officer in the Imo governorship poll.Jega noted that there were four local governments in the state affected, and that there was a local government where no election took place at all, and three local governments where election had to be cancelled.Besides, there is a particular ward, I think in Owerri North, where also results were not declared. So, if you add all of these, you know they will make a difference in terms of gaps between the PDP and APGA candidates, he said.The right thing to do is to declare it inconclusive and hold another election and then you add up and decide on the winner.He recalled that that was what the INEC did in the case of Anambra Central senatorial district.Because the margin there was so small and since there were areas that were cancelled, we had to go and do the election again before we now added it and collated and announced the results and declared a winner, he said.The INEC boss also spoke on why he accepted the risky and thankless job of conducting elections in Nigeria.He said: It may interest you to know that from myself, as the chairman to national commissioners and all RECs, there isnt anyone of us who has not been accused of either taking money or siding with one political party or the other; and that is the nature of Nigerian politics.People will just make wild allegations, but if you say where is the proof, there will be no proof. So, I cannot just start removing people or engaging or prosecuting people if there is no evidence.But where we believe that it is necessary to do so, either in order to restore normalcy or in order to provide a level playing field, we will do so.We have done it in Imo. We just asked the REC in Imo to proceed on leave and we brought somebody for the supplementary election.
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